Tag Archives: Family

Merry Christmas from my family to yours! How I love this time of year and the opportunity to celebrate the birth and life of my Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the reason behind the holiday and the center of my personal and family celebrations. I love everything about Christmas, but most especially how wonderful it is to be surrounded by these dear people who mean so much to me. I hope that your holiday is filled with joy, peace, and merriment in the company of cherished friends and loved ones.

As we look ahead to the start of another year, I am just bursting with excitement for 2019—it marks 35 years since I first began selling stamps and designing my own. Close To My Heart is the amazing company and community that has grown out of those very first efforts of mine, which is why we’re making 2019 an entire year of celebration! We’re kicking off the year with a brand new catalog of products that will launch on January 1—here’s a little peek for you:

That’s only the cover, but I hope that when you look at it, you can feel the excitement I’m talking about. It’s the same excitement you feel on a Christmas morning: The anticipation of great things in store. And believe, me, have we got great things in store for you!

In fact, since it is just too hard to wait even one more week, I want to kick off the celebration with a little giveaway! I want to give away 35 prizes consisting of one of our new stamp sets paired with a pack of the new Mix-in paper packet featured in the upcoming idea book:

If you’d like to win one of these prizes, just share a comment with me of one thing you’ll be celebrating in 2019. Make your comment before January 1 and we’ll draw our 35 winners in the first week of January.

The reason I chose that particular stamp set is because of the sentiment, which says “We didn’t realize we were making memories we just knew we were having fun.” I have certainly experienced that many times in my 35 years of business! We may not always be aware of it, but we’re always making memories through all the adventures of this life. I hope that this holiday season has brought you many fun, fulfilling times, and that the year ahead brings you even more that you will be able to capture and preserve as happy memories for years to come.

From my heart to yours, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

There’s no better way to enjoy your favorite TV shows than by throwing a watch party with your family and friends! It might be a Super Bowl party, a girl’s night to watch the Oscars, or a get-together for the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Whatever you’re getting together to watch, the point is you are getting together, having fun, and making memories—which you should definitely include in your memory keeping!

Sometimes our watch parties become a family tradition, like the one featured in this layout. Include photos of the people that were there, but don’t forget to also add shots of the snacks, decorations, and any other happenings that mark the event. The sights, sounds, and tastes are all part of the experience and make those memories special. These pages use our All-Star Complements with Basics Fundamental and the Stargazer paper packets, creating a simple layout highlighting a family Super Bowl party worth remembering.

Sometimes, watch parties include activities before or after the actual watching. These may seem like everyday events to you, but in the long run these moments are what life is all about. The little every day things we do that make us, and celebrate, who we are. In the page above, we share some inspiration for the upcoming winter games. Stargazer Dots and All-Star Complements pair perfectly for whatever team you’ll be rooting for during the next few weeks.

As you prepare to throw your own watch parties, check out this video, where our very own Jill Broadbent shares theme party ideas for tomorrow’s Opening Ceremonies. Complete with décor, food, and crafts, all you need to do is take a quick trip to the grocery store and get out your favorite Close To My Heart paper and cardstock.

Preserving what matters most includes the traditions we create with friends and family. With the Oscars in a few short weeks and a royal wedding in May, there are plenty of memory making watch party opportunities heading our way!

How do you celebrate these, and other, TV milestones? Share with us, in the comments below!

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What a wonderful time of year! I love the opportunity to celebrate the birth and life of our Savior with the world, and with each of you! I can say without a doubt that I have been blessed immensely this year to count you among my friends.

My beautiful grandchildren are a constant reminder to me of how simple and carefree life can be when we focus on the good things in life. Christmas through the eyes of a child is especially magical. There is so much anticipation, hope, and unconditional love in every moment. And if you’re fortunate enough, you may catch a glimpse of it through a quick twinkle in their eyes.

My hope for each of us both during this special season and any time throughout the year is to be more like children. Love unconditionally, forgive easily and often, and focus on all of the good—and there is so much good—in this world.

I love my grandkids with all of my heart for the innocent lessons they teach me on a regular basis. And, I love all of you. Thank you for being so much of the good that is in my life.

May your lives be merry and bright and full of unconditional love this Christmas!

Every scrapbook album needs a front cover page and a back cover page…but sometimes it’s hard to know how to summarize your album! After all, you only have two pages, one at the front and one at the back, to explain what the entire album holds!

If cover pages have you stumped, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered! 😉 Here are three fail-proof ideas for creating amazing cover pages!

In Great Shape

Attach a large shape to the center of your base page. Then position your title and photos over this shape. Even if you have multiple photos (we have five here!), your page will still feel like a cover page because the large shape in the background creates a central focus. Pretty neat trick, right? 🙂

Easy As 1-2-3!

Simply attach three photos horizontally across the center of your page. Then add your title directly above or below these photos. Three is the key here! It’s a balanced number that draws the eye in.

Keep It Simple, Silly!

When all else fails, find a photo that sums up your album, and center it on your page along with a prominent title.

One fun spin on this approach is to center your photo but then place the title on the left side of your page, either vertically or horizontally!

Overall, the secret to creating a strong cover page is to draw the eye in to a central point with your pictures and title. If you keep that in mind, then you’re off to a great start!

Since we’re in the memory-keeping business and it’s National Scrapbooking Month, we thought it would be fun to gather up a bunch of feel-good stories about lost memories (in the form of photos, letters, and videos) miraculously being returned to their owners. These stories are a great reminder of just how valuable our memories are—and how important it is to preserve them and keep them safe. Grab a few tissues, and enjoy! 🙂

1. Long-lost Letter and Photo from Dying Mom Found in Used Book

A used bookstore owner finds a letter and photo from a dying woman in an old book, and returns them to her daughter. Read more.

2. Family Finds Lost Wedding Photo at Salvation Army

A woman loses a priceless family wedding photo when her car is repossessed. Four years later, her daughter finds the photo at a Salvation Army. Read more.

3. Reporter Finds Old Family Album Discarded on Street and Returns to Relatives

A reporter finds an old family album discarded on a street in Brooklyn, New York. She traces the album back to the owner’s family, and in the process, uncovers a rich history of what it was like to be African American during the mid-1900s. Read more.

4. Mom Reunited with Lost Family VHS Tape

A 23-year-old purchases a VHS player at Goodwill and finds a VHS tape inside with footage of a little girl’s first steps, Halloween, and Christmas. He finds the owner through social media. Read more.

5. Man Finds Trunks of Photos and Documents Hidden in Home and Returns to Family

A man discovers a secret room in his old Michigan home with two steamer trunks of photos and documents. He returns the priceless memories to the family’s 70-year-old daughter. Read more.

6. Stranger Re-unites Family with Photo Album 20 Years Later

A man finds a family album under the seat of his second-hand armchair. After posting about it on Facebook, he finds the owners within 24 hours. Read more.

7. Photo Reveals Adopted Son Has Twin Sister

After learning he was adopted, an 18-year-old eventually stumbles across a photo from his birth mom depicting his siblings. This photo helps reunite him with his twin. Read more.

8. Woman Returns Photos to Families After Superstorm Sandy

A woman collects photos from the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy and starts a Facebook group to return the photos to their owners. She’s now uploaded over 2,000 photos and helped over 60 families reconnect with their priceless photos. Read more.

9. Article Connects Homeless Man with Family Album

After publishing an article about a homeless street comic, a journalist receives an email from a stockbroker. He says the homeless man had worked on his home, prior to being let go for drug use on the premises, and left behind a family photo album. The journalist receives the album from the stockbroker and returns it to the homeless man. Read more.

10. Social Media Connects Man with Photo Lost in 9/11 Attacks

A professor posts a picture of a photo found at Ground Zero on social media year after year, hoping to find the owner. 13 years later, she connects with the man who had the photo sitting on his desk on the 77th floor of the World Trade Center. Read more.

At the heart of scrapbooking is the idea of preserving memories and telling stories in a meaningful way that will last. Scrapbooks are a great way to preserve your family’s history and be artistic at the same time.

Our Live Beautifully paper packet, which is only available this month as part of National Scrapbooking Month, features vintage-inspired designs that are perfect for heritage scrapbooking.

The beautiful flowers on this page were trimmed right out of one of the Live Beautifully papers. To really make them pop, we curled up the edges and attached them using 3-D foam tape. They look like they’re blooming right off the page!

This page also shows how the All About the Gold Fundamentals make a great companion to your Live Beautifully papers. They are 12″ x 12″ clear overlays with gold foil designs; on this page we used the diagonal stripes design. These overlays work really well with the gold foil accents featured in the Live Beautifully paper packet.

And while we’re talking about gold, let’s not overlook gold glitter paper! We used it to mat our photos here, and we love the results! Gold glitter paper looks really elegant with sepia or black and white photos. We finished the page off with some gold foil accents from the Springtime Complements, including the title.

Which additional products do you like to use with the Live Beautifully paper packet for your heritage scrapbooking? Tell us in the comments below!

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Our brand new Holiday Expressions idea book has now been live for almost two weeks, and we’re thrilled you finally get to see all the beautiful seasonal papers we’ve worked so hard on getting just right. 🙂 Part of making sure our papers are absolutely perfect includes balancing themed patterns with non-themed patterns so you have as much versatility as possible when you sit down to create.

Take this artwork, for example. It uses our Jeepers Creepers paper packet, which is Halloween themed, but you would never guess that it came from a Halloween paper packet, right?

The fun lightening bolts are just the pattern for pairing with this spunky little girl. They’d also be adorable with pictures of a little boy.

Now how about this one? Does it remind you of Halloween?

Who would have thought that this paper packet could be paired with spring photos? And yet it totally works! We paired some ribbon from our Whimsy ribbon pack with the purple Jeepers Creepers paper to give it a feminine touch.

Switching seasons, Jeepers Creepers also has colors that are perfect for your fall photos, like these family pictures:

Whenever you pull out our papers to create something, you can count on beautiful themed patterns and also patterns that will work year-round. When it comes to preserving your memories, we want you to get papers with the best value that will also allow you to get as creative as you’d like!

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Each Close To My Heart paper packet has its own theme, feel, and color scheme, which makes creating cohesive artwork a breeze! But at its heart, each packet is made up of beautiful, individual patterned papers that can be used together in all kinds of combinations.

Today we’re going to expand your horizon, invite you to try something new, get you out of your comfort zone, and all that jazz—because we’re going to share you with you three different approaches to mixing our paper packets together!

This card is wearing Zoe, Kaleidoscope, and Georgie 🙂

Approach #1: Invent your own color scheme and choose papers that fit. For this card, we chose pastel colors. Light pinks, blues, greens, and yellows from several different paper packets all work together in this cheery card.

This page is wearing Zoe, Urban, Georgie, and Kaleidoscope. 🙂

Approach #2: Choose papers that are different tones of the same color and then add one or two accent colors. Here, we have all sorts of blues—Glacier, Juniper, and Peacock—accented by Pear and Gypsy papers.

This layout is wearing Georgie, Kaleidoscope, and Zoe. 🙂

Approach #3: Pair up different papers based on a shared color tone. In this example, we started with a paper we really liked—this Juniper one from the Georgie paper packet. The little Canary dots on our Georgie paper inspired us to pair it with the bright Canary paper from the Kaleidoscope paper packet. They make a beautiful duo, don’t they?

What are your favorite paper packets to combine? Tell us in the comments below!

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Whether you’re celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow or not, I’m sure each of you has special traditions around this time of year that you’re looking forward to sharing with your loved ones. One of my favorite parts of this holiday is the conversation that we always have over dinner and throughout the evening. It’s just so nice to be together as a family, talking.

I often make reference to the Close To My Heart family because Close To My Heart feels like so much more than a company to me. This family would include all of you who are reading this blog, so I wanted to do something to share this Thanksgiving holiday tradition with you, too.

Here’s my idea: Remember the printable conversation starters we shared in a blog post last week? I thought it would be fun to give my answers to a few of my favorites, just like I would if I were with you in person! And I would love it if you would pick one of your favorites from last week’s list and share a response with me in the comments, too. That way, though we won’t all be together around a dinner table, we can still enjoy getting to know more about each other. I’ll go first!

Q: What is the most mischievous thing you did as a child?

A: When I was about 3 or 3 ½, my mother was taking me on a trip by bus to visit one of her family members. She was pregnant with my brother, and she said that I was quite the handful. I was running on the chairs and all over the place. I would go to the ashtrays, grab the cigarette butts, and try to mimic the people smoking at the bus station. Then I took my little hand and pulled on the station fire alarm. Everybody started screaming and running out; my mom was trying to grab me and keep me from running out with all the people!

She also said that I’d stare out the window. I’d see flies and say, “Look at all the little airplanes!” Once I realized they were flies, I would take the dead ones from the windowsill in my hand, stroke them, and say, “Poor little dead flies.” My mom would slap the flies out of my hand—I think she was afraid that I was going to try eating them!

Q: What nicknames have you been called?

A: I have one that I was called when I was in grade school. All my friends would call me “Jeanetti Spaghetti.” That’s what I went by just at school until my mom adopted the name, too. It wasn’t that funny when she said it, but I guess it was endearing. My husband, David, calls me “Honey.” I know he’s really serious when he calls me by my name, so I’d rather be called “Honey” than “Jeanette” by David.

Q: Which decade best describes your personality and why?

A: I love the 70s without a doubt. The music from the 70s captures my heart. I love Three Dog Night, Bread, Carole King. . . . I could name off every group. I sang every song, and I loved it. So I think that the 70s best describes me because of its music.

Q: Which smells remind you of your childhood?

A: Every time I smell a warm rain on a warm day on a warm street, it reminds me of playing and jumping around in the rain as a child—just carefree. It was a happy time to be outside in a rainstorm, when the rain first hit the pavement.

Q: What is the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?

A: I’m thinking about the beach in Maui. I love looking at the ocean—sitting on the beach, and just watching the waves roll in. Our family had a special palm tree we would sit under when we visited that beach. I love Maui—I love everything about Maui.

The other place I love is American Fork Canyon; it’s probably the most beautiful place in the whole world. It’s just right here in our backyard. I love the big cliffs, the rocks, the trees, and the beautiful Tibble Fork Reservoir in front of all those pine trees—it’s just gorgeous! I think that we have the most beautiful mountains in the world, and I think people around here take it for granted. But I find the greatest pleasure every time I look at them, which is often.

I’ll stop there, though it would be fun to keep going! Go ahead and look at the full list of conversation starters, pick your favorite one, and then share your answer to it in the comments on this post.

As I’m focusing on gratitude this Thanksgiving, know that I’ll certainly be thinking of you. I’m truly grateful to be able to count friends as supportive as you among my many blessings. God bless you!

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Jeanette Lynton

Meet Jeanette Lynton—wife, mother, artist, and Founder & CEO of one of the world’s leading companies in the papercrafting industry. This blog is dedicated to all who share her love of creativity. Visit often, share your stories, and become family!

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